Sex. Violence. Elections. Oops. Officials in Denmark have retracted a controversial animated cartoon that was intended to inspire young people to vote in upcoming elections for the European Parliament. The 90-second video featured a mustachioed, muscular man aggressively interrupting a couple having sex and punching people into a polling station. It was posted late Monday on the Danish Parliament's social media sites. Parliament Speaker Mogens Lykketoft said Tuesday that the 179-seat Folketing should in future "be more careful with what we put our name to." Lawmakers said it was done without their knowledge.

Safety first

Challenge comes with risk factor

A fad in which people challenge their friends to jump into freezing water in efforts to raise money for charity has prompted warnings from state and school officials across the nation. The phenomenon began last month as a fundraiser for a 6-month-old cancer patient in Missouri. As it spread on social media, the rules about contributing to charity evolved into several variations. As the so-called cold-water challenges have grown, more divers have reported broken bones, blown-out knees or worse. High schools in Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin have begun alerting parents.

Fighting Words

Dispute meeting leads to dispute

School officials say a meeting that included parents to settle a dispute among teenage girls led to a fight involving nearly a dozen students and prompted a lockdown at a suburban Atlanta high school. Clayton County schools spokeswoman Vicki Gavalas says it happened at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale on Tuesday. Gavalas says one of the parents at the meeting instigated a fight between her daughter and another student afterward. That escalated into a fight involving 11 students.